Intro
As far as I can tell, nothing in my FYI is untrue. But it's perhaps not the whole truth.
I used Michele in California online as my email signature for years on Tagmax and an early email address of mine was CalifMichele which was intended as a shorter version of Michele in California. So my very first website was also CalifMichele because it was based on and associated with that email address.
I can't remember if it was a .com or not because my vague recollection is that it was a free site that was part of that account and automatically had the same name as my email address. But I no longer remember what it was.
I chose it entirely because it was an abbreviation for California. I was living in California and it's a nearly unique place name.
But it did cross my mind that it could be misinterpreted as Khalif at the time that I chose it. I knew Khalifs are always male and it amused me to think "Ah, a female Khalif! Heh."
I didn't think it mattered. I didn't know anyone who was Muslim and it wasn't spelled the same and it only crossed my mind at all because my sons and husband all had email addresses with something like King or Baron in them and it gave me a giggle that mine sort of unintentionally had a title in it too, not a political title but a religious one.
So it crossed my mind and I giggled and then went "Nah, not important at all. It's not a reason to not choose it. It's an abbreviation for California and that's all there is to that."
My recollection is I chose that email address while living in Southern California and 9/11 happened at our next duty station. Coincidentally, True Lies was supposed to come out like that week and happens to have Middle Eastern villains in it and Schwarzenegger chose to delay the release to not stir up a hornet's nets.
But after 9/11, American movie villains were suddenly all Middle Eastern and I was uncomfortably aware of that because before that the default nationality of American movie villains was German and my mother was German.
So I didn't feel that was meaningless coincidence that didn't matter. There was no clear bright line moment where I suddenly became uncomfortable with my email address and the website address based on it, but as Middle Easterners were increasingly smeared and movie villains were suddenly consistently Middle Eastern instead of German, I started to get steadily more uncomfortable without consciously connecting it to this change.
But at some point I felt like having the URL with CalifMichele was a disaster waiting to happen. I began imagining some ugly incident with some Islamic individual feeling disrespected and attacking me and I was realizing it's just not a good URL all around because it's not obvious how to spell it if you SAY it to someone and for other reasons. I was researching what makes for a good URL and THIS was NOT it.
So I bought some URLs and began splitting up the content because it was a mishmash of homeschooling, parenting and urban planning posts.
I was still living in the same apartment I had been living in on 9/11 when I met Navarre online. I don't think I still had an email address or anything under CalifMichele when I met him.
I've touched on the fact that my relationship to him was a growth experience and to my surprise I learned a lot about respecting myself and about equality for women which I didn't expect at all.
I never learned Farsi AKA the Persian language, though I wanted to and went through a chapter or two of EasyPersian.com and still have the link years later. In my teens, I wanted to become fluent in multiple languages and had a list: German, French, Spanish, Russian, Greek "and one more, probably something Asian or Middle Eastern."
I've actually studied every single one of those languages though I've never achieved fluency. So I met Navarre and Farsi was one of his "four" languages that he claimed fluency in. He also knew some Arabic but didn't count it, I guess because he wasn't fluent.
So because of my relationship to him, I decided Farsi would be that last language, but I was too sick to pursue it in earnest.
I do know from speaking with him that, like Japanese, Farsi only has one gender-neutral pronoun and I do know from research and other discussions that Japanese culture and language helps foster better gender equality and I do know that contrary to the general American view that Middle Eastern culture is dramatically more misogynistic than the US, Navarre helped me find my self respect and my voice and breathed life into me and I didn't die when I should have.
So I revived CalifMichele as a blogspot site to speak about female empowerment as an homage to the Middle Eastern man who taught me that to begin with.
I was in California when that relationship happened. It mostly died once I left. So you still really shouldn't interpret CalifMichele as Khalif.
20 December 2025
I used Michele in California online as my email signature for years on Tagmax and an early email address of mine was CalifMichele which was intended as a shorter version of Michele in California. So my very first website was also CalifMichele because it was based on and associated with that email address.
I can't remember if it was a .com or not because my vague recollection is that it was a free site that was part of that account and automatically had the same name as my email address. But I no longer remember what it was.
I chose it entirely because it was an abbreviation for California. I was living in California and it's a nearly unique place name.
But it did cross my mind that it could be misinterpreted as Khalif at the time that I chose it. I knew Khalifs are always male and it amused me to think "Ah, a female Khalif! Heh."
I didn't think it mattered. I didn't know anyone who was Muslim and it wasn't spelled the same and it only crossed my mind at all because my sons and husband all had email addresses with something like King or Baron in them and it gave me a giggle that mine sort of unintentionally had a title in it too, not a political title but a religious one.
So it crossed my mind and I giggled and then went "Nah, not important at all. It's not a reason to not choose it. It's an abbreviation for California and that's all there is to that."
My recollection is I chose that email address while living in Southern California and 9/11 happened at our next duty station. Coincidentally, True Lies was supposed to come out like that week and happens to have Middle Eastern villains in it and Schwarzenegger chose to delay the release to not stir up a hornet's nets.
But after 9/11, American movie villains were suddenly all Middle Eastern and I was uncomfortably aware of that because before that the default nationality of American movie villains was German and my mother was German.
So I didn't feel that was meaningless coincidence that didn't matter. There was no clear bright line moment where I suddenly became uncomfortable with my email address and the website address based on it, but as Middle Easterners were increasingly smeared and movie villains were suddenly consistently Middle Eastern instead of German, I started to get steadily more uncomfortable without consciously connecting it to this change.
But at some point I felt like having the URL with CalifMichele was a disaster waiting to happen. I began imagining some ugly incident with some Islamic individual feeling disrespected and attacking me and I was realizing it's just not a good URL all around because it's not obvious how to spell it if you SAY it to someone and for other reasons. I was researching what makes for a good URL and THIS was NOT it.
So I bought some URLs and began splitting up the content because it was a mishmash of homeschooling, parenting and urban planning posts.
I was still living in the same apartment I had been living in on 9/11 when I met Navarre online. I don't think I still had an email address or anything under CalifMichele when I met him.
I've touched on the fact that my relationship to him was a growth experience and to my surprise I learned a lot about respecting myself and about equality for women which I didn't expect at all.
I never learned Farsi AKA the Persian language, though I wanted to and went through a chapter or two of EasyPersian.com and still have the link years later. In my teens, I wanted to become fluent in multiple languages and had a list: German, French, Spanish, Russian, Greek "and one more, probably something Asian or Middle Eastern."
I've actually studied every single one of those languages though I've never achieved fluency. So I met Navarre and Farsi was one of his "four" languages that he claimed fluency in. He also knew some Arabic but didn't count it, I guess because he wasn't fluent.
So because of my relationship to him, I decided Farsi would be that last language, but I was too sick to pursue it in earnest.
I do know from speaking with him that, like Japanese, Farsi only has one gender-neutral pronoun and I do know from research and other discussions that Japanese culture and language helps foster better gender equality and I do know that contrary to the general American view that Middle Eastern culture is dramatically more misogynistic than the US, Navarre helped me find my self respect and my voice and breathed life into me and I didn't die when I should have.
So I revived CalifMichele as a blogspot site to speak about female empowerment as an homage to the Middle Eastern man who taught me that to begin with.
I was in California when that relationship happened. It mostly died once I left. So you still really shouldn't interpret CalifMichele as Khalif.
20 December 2025